New Chapter, Old War
by Roman Del Rio
Summary: The feud of the Iga and Kouga resurfaces in WWII era Japan.
1. The Murder and the Follwing Events

I remember it clearly. It was the fifth of January in 1942. The day of my 13th birthday. Mom, Dad, Uncle Jiro, Aunt Muru, Grandma Akira, Grandpa Saburo, and I were going to the eating room at 7:00 P.M., the time when my older sister Yukiko said her special recipe for my birthday would be finished. Instead a wonderful array of food on the table, I saw my sister lying on the floor in a sea of her own blood with a huge gash in the front of her throat. Grandma fainted, and I threw up. Then I saw writing on the wall. Very strange writing. Not just because it was written in blood. However, I knew it was Japanese. I then recognized it from the old scrolls in the basement of the family dojo attached to our house. Grandpa read the writing and I could see the horror in his light brown eyes. I looked at the wall again and recognized a part of the writing: "Iga-kyo." School of Iga. My head flashed back to all of Grandpa's stories of the brutal hatred between the Kouga and the Iga. I used to have nightmares of being one of the 20 ninjas who fought to the death to decide the next Tokugawa Shogun. However, Grandpa always comforted me that the feud was dead and would never reoccur in this time of great modernization and expansion. Now, at 90 years of age, I understand that 1.) Modernization and expansion will never destroy things established in old Japan 2.) Grandpa was hiding a dark secret. A secret much darker than the fact the feud had a 0.001% chance of restarting. A secret that destroyed my image of him as a gentle, funny old man and changed it into that of a demon.

A week after the murder of Yukiko, my family and I had the wake part of her funeral. On that day, instead of wearing Western clothing, we wore our traditional white robes in the tradition of an ancient Japanese wake. All of the people (in their robes, too) attending the funeral crowded around the brown, wooden coffin that encased my sister's corpse. As I inspected the crowd around us, I spotted many of my ninjutsu classmates and Yukiko's school friends. Even though they were all from different backgrounds, they were weeping in unison like newborns. There was no reason to blame them though. My sister was perhaps the kindest person in my life. My sister was like a second mother. She cared for me along with Mom from the time I was born. She also made most of the family meals. However, what stood out most about her in my mind were her ninjutsu skills and, not to mention, being the only girl in the class. During ninjustsu class, I would hear all the boys she went up against (including me. As a matter of fact, I still have a scar on my scalp) scream with agony. Yet she always helped them get back up from the floor. She would always bandage their wounds. Thus making her equally hated and loved by the class.

Finally, we put our incense into the urn in front of the dark grey family gravestone while the old priest chanted a section from a sutra. After that, the priest gave the envelope of condolence money to Mom. I never understood the concept of condolence money. It's useless since money can't replace a loved one. Thus the wake was done. Then my family went to the funeral home to spend one final night with Yukiko before she was cremated.

The next day, my family and I walked solemnly to the crematorium room in the same clothes as yesterday. Today was the actual funeral. We witnessed as the coffin was slid into the chamber. This was the final goodbye. The final time would actually be when we pick her bones from her ashes, but I don't think looking at a pile of ash counts as being with the person.

We returned to the room two hours later to pick the bones from the ashes. As I used my chopsticks to sort the bone form the ash, I tried not to gag. _This pile of ash was once my beloved sister. _But before I knew it, the last bone was picked and we left the funeral home and were on our way to our personal, less depressing home.

The next day, I went to the family gravestone. It was covered with beautiful pink and yellow flowers. I still find it mind-blowing how one person can impact several people's lives. After I noticed and stared at the beautiful contrast that the bright flower had against the dark grey gravestone for five minutes, I looked around the graveyard. It was empty except for one man. He looked like he was in his 40's. He also wore a suit that the salary men wore. He also had a clean-cut haircut common of salary men. What were most noticeable, however, were the severe burns on his face and hands. It looked as if an artist put blotches of burned-skin colored paint in random places. When he started to look in my direction, I quickly looked away. He then simply walked away form the graveyard.

_That was a close one,_ I thought to myself.

Little did I know who that man was or how finding out who he was would be the first step of finding out the demon my grandpa was. And how he created a demon.

The next morning, after I read the newspaper and had coffee with my family, I went to the graveyard again. As I looked upon Yukiko's grave, I speculated who killed her (and could potentially kill me and my entire family). I imagined a man who looked somewhat reptilian. A man who laughed at my pain. A man who just didn't care whatsoever about the suffering of others. As I looked around after that scary thought, I saw the burned salary man in front of the gravestone of his loved ones. I looked away until he left the graveyard once again. After he left, my eyes followed him. He got into his black just outside the black fence of the cemetery and drove off. The man scared me to death. I still have nightmares about him. It wasn't only his horrific burns that terrified me. It was that look in his eye. There was no good emotion at all in that look. It was as if divinity brewed all of the bad emotions into a giant cauldron and filled his eye sockets with the brew. And his facial expression never changed. His lips never broke into a smile or frown. I once saw him frown later in my life, but I'll tell you about that later…

Anyways, out of sheer curiosity, I walked over to the salary man's gravestone. It looked just like my family gravestone. It was dark grey. It even had the same shape. The only difference was a very large one: his gravestone had way more names than our gravestone. I read the gravestone. Chills went down my spine. The surname on all the names was "Iga."


	2. The Journal

I tried to convince myself that I was seeing things. But I knew I wasn't deep down inside. The word "Iga" was deeply carved in that dark grey gravestone. And there was nothing I could do about it. However, there could be more than one Iga family. One never knows, but an annoying pang in my gut (which I actually felt in my stomach) told me otherwise. Should I tell my family? Or shouldn't I? It seemed like a stupid question since my discovery revealed that the burned salary man could pose a threat to my entire family's life. I decided not to since I loved my family too much to send them all in a panic. I eventually discovered that that choice indirectly saved me form being killed.

I left the graveyard not only to get away from that one damned gravestone, but because I had my ninjutsu class at the family dojo. The family dojo was very small for a once great ninja family. It was dark brown on the outside with windows all around the white, single room so potential customers could observe the class. It was this observing that made them join the class instead of the great Kouga name on the front of the dojo. After all, the ninja are dead. Why would the observers know the Kouga name?

Before I entered the dojo, I went to the family home and into my room to change into my black cotton outfit I usually wear to class. Even today, I find it stupid how ninjutsu students wear black martial arts outfits. Why would a ninja make himself distinct form his target?

On my way to my room, I purposely avoided the eating room because of the incident that occurred there. Once in my room, I quickly changed into my martial arts outfit and zoomed to the dojo (avoiding the eating room again).

The class felt empty without Yukiko. I bet all the other students felt the emptiness, too due to the solemn looks on their faces.

"Ok, students. You have a new classmate. His name is Hanazaki Yoshiko. Respect him just like anyone else in the class. 'Cuz I can expel you from this fine establishment at any time," said my instructor/father. Even though he was my dad, he didn't cut me any slack. As a matter of fact, he pushed me harder than anyone else in the class. Now that I'm older, I realize that he did this because he loved me.

The new student resembled an ogre. Dad said he was 15, but my first guess was that he was 17. He had a scar on his upper lip and had a buzz cut which made him look even more intimidating.

"Let's see what ya got, kid. Akira, show him what Kouga-kyo is all about."

As Dad called my name, I was terrified. No way was I going to fight this monster. I nervously stepped to the front of the class. Beads of cold sweat already formed on my neck.

"Did you take any martial arts before this class?" asked Dad.

"I'm a black belt in karate," the boy answered.

Right when he stated that, I urinated in my pants a little. But before I knew it, Dad told us to shake hands, and the fight started. He glared at me as we moved around each other trying to figure out what to do. Out of the blue, he threw a right roundhouse kick. I evaded it, but it grazed my stomach. His long toenail had created a tear on ym outfit. One second later, he launched a front push kick at my face. I ducked and he lost his balance. I tried to trip him, but he elbowed me right in the ribs. I urinated a little again when I heard a crack. I fell to the floor in agony. Even though I wasn't crying, my eyes started to water for a second before I expertly held the tears back. It turns out Grandpa, an expert ninja and an expert in medicine, was watching in the doorway. He immediately ran into the class and guided me down the stairs to the basement of the dojo. As Grandpa guided me down the stairs, I saw the astonished faces on all of the students except for one. The exception was my opponent. He was smirking. If my ribs weren't cracked, I would've run over to him and clock him straight in the jaw.

Grandpa told me to sit down in the chair in the basement while he went to the house to get some bandages. To keep myself occupied, I reached for the cardboard boxes next to where I was sitting. These boxes contained the ancient documentation of the Kouga clan. I put the closest light brown box on my lap and rummaged through its contents. I was about to put it down until I saw something that I hadn't seen before. It was a withered journal. It was the same light brown as the boxes yet more withered. The binding had worn over the years, so I carefully picked it up so the numerous pages wouldn't fly out. I flipped to a random page in the middle. It turned out to be a journal since the writing began with a date. It read as follows:

_January 26, 1900._

_We went to the residence of the Iga last night. We burned the entire damned place to the ground. But before that, we tore each family member apart limb by limb. There was no retaliation from them. They had obviously left their ninja past behind. How pathetic. Anyways, the other party members were too scared to kill a 10-year-old Iga brat. Instead of mutilating him, I left him to burn in the fire. I doubt he got out alive. Even if he did, the little pig doesn't even know ninjutsu. I fear no retaliation for what I did. But more importantly, I feel no remorse._

That one passage left me terrified. I was so scared that my face just froze. Just then, Grandpa walkeddown the stairs with white bandages and various wooden bottles of ointment. He saw me with the journal, dropped his load, immediately grabbed the journal, and closed it without looking at the page I was reading.

"Oh-ho-ho. This is my journal. Sorry, Akira, but this is off limits."

TO BE CONTINUED…


End file.
